Read the response to Father Johansen's
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n
1995,
Archbishop Elden Curtiss
of Omaha,
Nebraska
raised eyebrows and hackles throughout the Catholic Church by
writing
and publicly saying that the so-called vocations crisis and priest
shortage were “artificial and contrived.” The Archbishop’s words came
as a shock to many lay Catholics, confirmed the suspicions of many
others, and provoked outraged hostility among Catholic “progressives”.
Michael Rose took the Archbishop’s statement as his starting point for
Goodbye, Good Men, in which he describes and chronicles the
reasons behind the drastic decline in the number of young men entering
Catholic seminaries in the 1970’s and 80’s.

Before examining
Rose’s book, a few words are in order about my own background and
perspective. I first began exploring a vocation to the priesthood in
the mid-1980’s, while in college. I met with some of the same
difficulties and obstacles faced by “orthodox” seminary candidates
that Rose describes in his book. After graduate school, I studied at
two different seminaries for two different dioceses: St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, in Philadelphia, for the Diocese of Arlington,
Virginia and Sacred Heart Major Seminary, in Detroit, for the Diocese
of Kalamazoo, Michigan. I was ordained for the Diocese of Kalamazoo in
August 2001. I consider myself to be a priest that tries to be
faithful to the Church’s teaching and discipline.

Fidelity to the
Church, its teaching and discipline, would seem to most people,
Catholic or otherwise, to be a sine qua non for Catholic
priests. But in Goodbye, Good Men Rose describes an environment
in many Catholic seminaries during the 70’s and 80’s which encouraged
dissent and disobedience, as well as moral and doctrinal laxity. In
these seminaries, Rose writes, those responsible for recruitment and
admissions actively sought out men who supported the “progressive” or
liberal Catholic agenda: abolition of priestly celibacy, ordination of
women, acceptance of the gay lifestyle, and liturgical
experimentation. Those few men with more traditional views who got
into these seminaries were subjected to harassment and attempts at
re-indoctrination. Rose describes an atmosphere in which expressions
of reverence such as genuflection or kneeling were derided, and
traditional devotions such as the rosary received scorn and hostility.

Goodbye, Good
Men has twelve chapters, each of which details some aspect of the
vocations crisis. In the first three chapters, Rose shows how some
seminaries and vocation directors (the person in a diocese or
religious community responsible for the recruitment of candidates)
actively attempted to screen out candidates who voiced loyalty to the
teachings and discipline of the Church, or who showed an attachment to
traditional expressions of piety such as the rosary or Eucharistic
adoration. In the fourth and perhaps most disturbing chapter, Rose
describes a homosexual “subculture” which came to dominate some
seminaries in the 70’s and 80’s. The middle chapters of the book
describe the denigration and deconstruction of Catholic doctrine,
liturgy, and devotion which subsisted in some seminaries during the
same period. Other chapters detail the misuse of psychology in the
seminary admissions and formation process, allegations of whitewashing
of seminary problems by the American hierarchy, and how seminary
admissions and formation were taken over by people with a “death wish”
for the priesthood. The book concludes with an examination of the
Church’s standards for seminary life, and a look at some dioceses
which are experiencing success in fostering priestly vocations.

Goodbye, Good
Men is not easy reading. Rose’s portrayal of vocational and
seminary abuses could lead the reader to the conclusion that American
Catholics have, by and large, been deliberately deprived of priests by
men and women whose agenda was “reshaping” and “re-imaging” the
Church. In Rose’s view, there hasn’t been a shortage of vocations,
there has been a shortage of what the progressive Catholics in power
desired as the “right kind” of vocations: those supportive of the
progressive agenda of women’s ordination, married clergy, and the
like. Rose’s contention is that many men who had genuine vocations
were deliberately screened out of the priesthood because the liberal
Catholics in control of the process found them unsupportive of their
agenda. Those who read Goodbye, Good Men will come away with an
appreciation of the prophetic nature of Archbishop Elden Curtiss’ claim that
the vocations shortage is “artificial and contrived.”

In order to
evaluate Rose’s contention that the seminary screening and formation
process has been misused, one must first have some understanding of
how it is properly used. Rose correctly points out that the seminary
is a place where one’s vocation is tested. Not every man who shows up
at the seminary’s or vocation director’s door has a genuine vocation.
Rose is also correct when he says that the Church, through the bishops
and seminary officials, is the judge of a man’s suitability for
ordination. The vocation director and seminary rector must find
answers to many questions about a candidate: Does he love Christ and
His Church? Is he prayerful? Does he have a genuine desire to serve?
Is he docile and open to correction? Does he have the basic social
skills necessary to interact with people? Is he psychologically
healthy and stable? Does he have the intellectual aptitude to study
Philosophy and Theology? If a man has some deficiency in one or more
areas, can the seminary help the man remedy or overcome it, or is it
so severe as to preclude his admission?

These are weighty
questions, and the people charged with finding the answers to them
have a grave responsibility, both to the Church and to the candidates.
The vocation directors and seminary formators also have a great deal
of authority and power. They are theoretically accountable to their
bishops, but many bishops have simply “handed off” the responsibility
for vocational discernment to their delegates, leaving them
practically unaccountable. In such a situation, there is potential for
abuse of power and authority.

If
those in charge of seminary admissions and formation confined
themselves to issues such as those mentioned above, there would be
little controversy, and Rose implies, not much of a priest shortage.
But, he writes, there has been a broadening of seminary evaluation
criteria beyond that which is legitimate, at the same there was
relaxation of the moral standards expected of seminarians. Rose
presents a litany of horror stories: the abuse of psychological
evaluations in the screening process, seminarians sent to therapy or
counseling because they took offense at homosexual advances; stories
of flagrant liturgical abuses. Rose also describes an academic
curriculum in some places that is inane and even promotes dissent. The
reader is led through a narrative which seems to go from one outrage
to another even worse.

There is too much
evidence of the abuse of authority in certain dioceses and seminaries
to dismiss Rose’s claims as baseless. It is still the case, even in a
seminary with a reputation for orthodoxy such as St. Charles, that
seminarians would not openly admit to members of the formation
committee that they attended a licit (under the
Ecclesia Deiindult) Tridentine liturgy for fear of being branded a “reactionary”
and hounded out. I know many priests and seminarians who were
subjected to harassment similar to that which Rose describes. I
personally was turned away by a Midwestern seminary in the mid-1980’s
for being “rigid”, “doctrinaire”, and “lacking in pastoral
sensitivity.” These terms are recognized “code words” for describing
seminarians and candidates who are loyal to Church teaching and
discipline, and are attached to traditional forms of piety and
devotion. The genius of using such terms is that they do have a
legitimate use: There really is such a thing as being rigid or
inflexible; there really are priests who lack sensitivity to people’s
needs or situations. By co-opting and re-defining such words, those
who wished to advance their own agenda were able to masquerade as
agents of the Church. Rose is correct in identifying the existence of
these people and their agenda and the damage they caused.

But while Rose may
be correct in certain respects, and while his claims have foundation,
neither are they entirely accurate, and his methods are at least
questionable. The first and most basic problem is his technique: He
piles on horror story after horror story, relying on the weight of the
indignation aroused in the reader to carry his point. There is a great
deal of narrative and relatively little analysis until the last two
chapters of the book. His conclusion seems to be that the climate of
experimentation and dissent of the 70’s and 80’s stifled or
sidetracked many vocations to the priesthood. He further concludes
that orthodoxy and reverence provide a fertile breeding ground for
vocations. These statements are certainly true, but they did not
require a 360 page litany of horror stories in order to be
demonstrated.

One difficulty in
dealing with the allegations of ex-seminarians is that of checking
facts. Often when a man leaves or is dismissed from the seminary with
good cause, the seminary officials are bound either canonically or by
the common duty of charity to remain silent about the reasons for his
departure. That leaves the author with only the ex-seminarian’s
version of the story. From the standpoint of journalistic accuracy,
this is a highly problematic situation. Just as in any other area of
reporting, one simply cannot rely on one person’s version of an event.
A case in point: while in seminary I knew a seminarian who was quite
devout: he prayed for literally hours of the day in chapel. However,
he did this at the cost of the complete neglect of his studies. When
confronted by brother seminarians and seminary officials about this
problem, he was dismissive, saying that he didn’t “need to bother
about that stuff”. What mattered, he said, was that he be holy. This
man was eventually dismissed, and rightly so. While it is certainly
true that seminarians should strive for holiness, the church also
expects them to be diligent in their studies. But after his dismissal,
this man told anyone who asked (and some that didn’t) that he had left
because they “wouldn’t let him pray.”

It is certainly
conceivable that a man dismissed from a seminary might “color” the
facts to make himself appear in a more favorable light. Furthermore,
“orthodoxy” in a seminarian isn’t necessarily enough. A man could be
perfectly orthodox and nonetheless entirely unfit for the priesthood.
The Church, in documents such as the Program for Priestly Formation
and
Pastores Dabo Vobis (I Will Give You Shepherds), makes it
clear that suitable candidates for the priesthood must have and
develop a whole range of intellectual, spiritual, and psychological
qualities, as well as doctrinal orthodoxy and piety.

Rose does not take
adequate account of these precautions, and can be shown not to have
checked his facts in some instances, and thus he has a very serious
credibility problem. I know some of the individuals mentioned in the
book. Most are known to me as men of integrity and truthfulness, and
their stories are presented accurately. But there is also evidence of
inaccuracy and perhaps even selective attention to the facts. I also
know individuals that Rose interviewed for this book, again reliable
men of integrity, whose version of events would have called into
question certain accounts found in the book. Rose omitted their
version from his book: one can only conclude that Rose selectively
presented only the evidence that tended towards his conclusion.
Furthermore, he relies upon testimony which is known to be unreliable
or even untruthful.

One unfortunate
case of this is Rose’s inclusion of Jason Dull’s highly tendentious
claims regarding Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. Mr. Dull was
a seminarian in the College division of Sacred Heart during the
1997-1998 academic year. Mr. Dull claims to have been the victim of
the sort of ideological persecution symptomatic of the worst
seminaries. He claims that he was sent to counseling because of his
orthodoxy, and furthermore, that “every orthodox seminarian” that he
knew was sent to counseling. While Mr. Dull may indeed have been asked
to see a counselor, it strains against common sense to believe that
“every” orthodox seminarian was sent to counseling. During my time at
Sacred Heart I would characterize most of the seminarians as orthodox,
and many of them were never sent to counseling. Furthermore, the mere
fact that a seminarian was asked to receive counseling is not per
se indicative of malicious intent. A seminarian may be perfectly
devout and orthodox, and may nonetheless have a real emotional or
psychological maladjustment which requires professional help. Church
documents such as
Optatam Totius (The Vatican II document on
priestly formation) and Pastores Dabo Vobis (an Apostolic
Letter by Pope John Paul II on the same subject) not only allow but
mandate the legitimate use of psychology in the formation of priests.

Unfortunately,
this is not the first time that Mr. Dull and Sacred Heart Major
Seminary have appeared in Rose’s writings. In the summer of 2000 Mr.
Rose published an article in the St. Catherine Review (which
publication Rose edits) which almost wholly relied on Mr. Dull’s
account of Sacred Heart (See “I’d Burn it Down... If It Wasn’t a Sin,
” St. Catherine Review, July/August 2000). The article was
highly critical of the Seminary. The article was also highly
inaccurate. In it Rose published Dull’s contentions that seminarians
were forbidden to pray for more than 15 minutes a day, and that
seminarians were encouraged to date, as though they were fact. These
allegations, and many other things Dull said, were demonstrably false.
Furthermore, Dull’s contention that he had left Sacred Heart
voluntarily because the classes were “too liberal” was also
demonstrably false. In fact Mr. Dull left because he was unwilling to
face seminary discipline for his own misconduct. Dull’s allegations
about Sacred Heart were a concatenation of lies, half-truths, and
self-serving misrepresentations.

It is certainly
possible that Rose was duped by Mr. Dull into believing his story.
Rose even admitted later in the
St. Catherine Review that
some of Dull’s allegations are “not independently verifiable”. Rose
did not, and to this day has never interviewed the Rector of Sacred
Heart Major Seminary, Bishop Allen Vigneron. Bishop Vigneron is well
known for his orthodoxy and loyalty to the Magisterium. As a bishop he
deserved at least the courtesy of an opportunity to speak for himself,
but that was never afforded him. Furthermore, faculty members such as
Dr. Robert Fastiggi (again, someone known for his orthodoxy), priest
alumni, and seminarians wrote and spoke to Rose to point out the error
of Dull’s account and defend Sacred Heart’s reputation. Two
seminarians even met with Rose and thoroughly demonstrated Dull’s
unreliability. At this meeting, according to those seminarians, Rose
promised to publish a retraction.

Rose did publish a
one page editorial entitled “Apologies to a Knight in Shining Armor,”
but in the view of many at Sacred Heart this article fell far short of
a retraction. While Rose, in this editorial, did attest to Bishop
Vigneron’s sterling character and reputation, he continued to maintain
that Bishop Vigneron’s subordinates are the locus of the problems:
that they, in effect, are continuing to carry out a program of
harassment of orthodox seminarians under Bishop Vigneron’s nose. It is
unaccountable how Rose could write his characterization of Vigneron as
a “knight in shining armor”, but in the same breath maintain that
Sacred Heart is a poorly run seminary without awareness of the
inherent contradiction. He justified his one-sided and irresponsible
article as warranted by the interview format. He continued to defend
Dull’s credibility as “unassailable,” long after that credibility was
thoroughly demolished. Indeed, to all appearances Rose remains largely
unrepentant for the damage he caused.

After eliciting
such a storm of controversy, one would think that Rose would refrain
from using Mr. Dull as a source in his book. But he does not show such
restraint. He again publishes Dull’s allegation as though it was fact,
without even a hint that his credibility has been challenged. It may
be pointed out that Dull’s testimony appears on only one page of the
book. But this in no way obviates criticism. The fact is that Dull’s
allegations are demonstrably incredible. One cannot use a discredited
source in a book which purports to be factual without calling one’s
own credibility into question. Rose’s use of a patently discredited
source such as Dull is simply unjustifiable. Indeed, readers of the
book will readily see that Dull’s testimony is in no way essential to
Rose’s argument. One cannot use testimony which is demonstrably false
without calling into question the veracity of the rest of his account.
Why does Rose insist on the use of such material, when it only
undermines his credibility?

I know both from
personal experience and that of many other priests and seminarians
that many of Rose’s allegations are true. But Rose’s tendency to play
fast and loose with facts, to use dubious sources, and to stick to
stories which have been shown false undermines his credibility. This
is unfortunate, as it only serves to obscure discussion of the real
remaining weaknesses in American seminaries. Furthermore, Rose’s
method is in itself potentially misleading. Most of the stories Rose
relates date to the 1970’s and 80’s, in many cases twenty or more
years ago. But Rose’s relentless style might easily lead readers into
believing that these stories are representative of what is going on in
most seminaries today. Even the secular press, such as the New York
Times, has published articles marveling at the devout and loyal
atmosphere prevailing in many American seminaries, and the devotion
and orthodoxy of most seminarians today. If a book like Goodbye, Good Men had been written ten years ago, it would have been
timely, provocative, and maybe even prophetic. But why, at a time when
many people acknowledge that things are improving, does Rose choose
now to bring out his catalogue of horrors from the past?

In fairness to
Rose, he does point out in the later chapters of his book that there
are signs of encouragement in American seminaries, but this admission
is confined to just three or four institutions. That hardly balances
out the overwhelmingly depressing portrait that he paints. If one
could be confident about the accuracy of that portrait that would be
one thing, but Rose’s questionable methods and his manipulative
technique cast a pall of doubt over his account. The fact is that the
grip of the “progressives” in American seminaries has loosened
considerably since the nadir of the 80’s. In most seminaries today,
men of outspoken loyalty to the Church and deep devotion, who might
have been turned away fifteen years ago, are welcomed and find
encouragement. Even places notorious for scandal and dissent in the
80’s have seen the return of traditional devotions such as Eucharistic
adoration.

This is not to say
that American seminaries have turned the corner, or that everything is
OK. Many weaknesses still exist, and priestly formation is not all it
could and should be. Most American seminaries, although making an
honest effort, do not come close to living up to the norms and
standards set by the Church. It is even possible that some of the same
people responsible for the abuses catalogued in Goodbye, Good Men
are still occupying positions of power in some seminaries. But there
have been enormous improvements in seminaries across the country in
the last decade. Seminaries such as Kenrick-Glennon in St. Louis and
Sacred Heartin Detroit have shown remarkable development in the last
decade, and now enjoy the confidence of bishops known for their
orthodoxy.

Goodbye, Good
Men is in many ways an unfortunate book. It is unfortunate because
the story of the problems in American seminaries needed to be told,
but it needed to be told with scrupulous concern for accuracy and
truth. It needed to be told in such a way as to elicit more than
righteous indignation from the faithful. It also needed to be told
with more nuance and penetration. It is also unfortunate because
Rose’s failure to make distinctions will actually distract attention
from the real remaining problems in American seminaries. Rose’s
credibility problems and his relative lack of analysis do little to
shed light on what may be done to strengthen our seminary system. Only
in the last two chapters does he have anything to say about what
factors come together to make a good seminary. Goodbye, Good Men
may create a great deal of controversy, but I fear that ultimately it
will do little to serve the good.


Rev. Robert
J. Johansen

Note: A
draft version of this review was inadvertently published online prior
to 6/7/02. The above version is the actual, published work which
appeared in the May, 2002 print edition of Culture Wars
magazine.

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